PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TLC.O. 882
1
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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correct the imprudent increases in 1844 and
1845.
XIV.—Additions to contingent Expenditure, 1846-7-8.
Mr. Anstruther, in his evidence before Lord George Bentinck's Committee in 1848, in accounting for the increase to the expenditure in these years, does not take the same view of
it which he did in his evidence given to this Committee in 1849; and neither one nor the other is quite consistent with the facts.
In 1848, he assumed the fixed expenditure for salaries to have increased, and the contingent expenditure on roads to have been diminished (16,714).
In 1849, before this Committee, he questions the extent of additions to the salaries (7731), and considers that the increase "must have been principally in the contingent expenditure" (7753).
Mr. Anstruther need not have been per- plexed for a solution of the question.
He must be well aware that the additions which he himself had made to what is properly called the fixed charges of the colony entailed in themselves a still further annual expenditure, which although it was not technically classed equally una under the head of fixed charges,
voidable in consequence of each addition to the fixed establishment.
For example, the outlay occasioned by the creation of one of the new District Courts, or Police Courts, which took place at his instance, is apparently limited to the mere salary of the
judge or the magistrate, or even the salaries of
his interpreters and clerks. These appear under the head of ordinary charges, but inseparable from them were the many votes which the Legis- lative Council found themselves compelled to accede to for providing buildings, furniture and repairs, stationery, transport and travelling charge, extra clerks, messengers, servants and peons, lights, and every other outlay incidental to a new establishment.
For example, between 1844 and 1847, I find that the additions to the following fixed esta
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blishments involved a simultaneous increase to
the contingent expenditure, viz:---
Annual addition
8,941 5 2 Rent, travelling charge,
servants, &c.
Annual incre
incidental
unized expen
to salaries and
6ixed expenditure.
CIVIL BRANCH:
£
Salaries, &c.
7,617
JUDICIAL BRanch:
Salaries, &c.
13,817 11
Contingent charges, tra
relling expense
2,258
MEDICAL BRANCH : Salaries, &c.
1,594 18
2659 10
EDUCATION BRANCH: Salaries, &c.
2,999 7
15,529 18
0 Hospital charges, vaci
cination, ke.
1,469 0 0 | Rent, furniture, books,
assistants, servants, &c. 25,822 9 5
So that in these four departments alone an ad- dition of 25,000. under the one head involved unavoidable addition to the charges of the colony of 15,000l. under another.
And it may be said on a moderate estimates that the addition to the fixed establishment of 42,0007. in the three years.before Mr. Anstruther left the island, occasioned an actual and inevi- table outlay for the same purpose of at least 10
to 15 per cent. more under other heads; in round numbers the charge thus imposed on the colony must have amounted to at least 50,000 per
annum.
This sum alone would account for the entire excess of expenditure which Mr. Anstruther impates to his successors, on the gross of all the
years since he retired from the colony.
In fact if this sum be deducted from the annual outlay since, it would show a rate of ex- penditare much on the same scale as the period immediately antecedent to his departure, to which Mr. Anstruther points attention ar a model of economy.
There is however a class of contingent ex- penditure to which Mr. Anstruther points as reprehensibla, inasmuch as it was more unro- servedly under the control of the Government and the Legislative Council, and fore he assumes have been greatly I mean the expanditure of publis
especially for reads.